


Shaw Is From Mars, Finch Is From Venus: Five Times Shaw and Finch Weren't On the Same Page (and One Time They Were)

by Dien



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gen, Holidays, M/M, Torture, clash of personalities
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-02
Updated: 2014-01-02
Packaged: 2018-01-07 03:35:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 8,923
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1115003
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dien/pseuds/Dien
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for the 2013 Irrelevant Gift Exchange fic. Basically a lot of disagreeing (and some agreeing) between Shaw and Finch, over things like holiday elf costumes, torture, and dignity.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Job

**Author's Note:**

  * For [pendrecarc](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pendrecarc/gifts).

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter came about because I always wanted to see the missing scene between Seasons 2 and 3 where Shaw agrees to actually work for/with them.

Reese, the trained one, wasn't anywhere near the bar. Shaw would have bet her favorite gun on the fact that he wasn't within a hundred yards of the building. She still circled the block once and watched the door for ten minutes before slipping inside.

"It's pretty stupid of you to meet me without your guard dog," she said as she slipped into the booth across from the man who had invited her. Finch acknowledged the point with a lift of his brows above his glasses, and slid one of the two mugs of beer across the table towards her.

She pursed her lips at him, gave him a narrow-eyed stare of calculation.

"Do I look like I poison people, Miss Shaw?"

"Yup," she answered instantly, but took the beer and drank-- drank deep, head back, throat working. It killed her peripheral vision and it gave Finch the bare vulnerability of her throat, but Shaw didn't give a shit-- he wasn't a threat, not physically anyway, and she had no compunctions about letting him know that.

She wondered if he understood what her gesture meant. Reese would have: he'd recognize it for what it was, a statement of contempt. (Not that she would have given _him_ the skin of her throat.) Reese was a soldier, like her, so he knew the language of the fight. But this guy?

Sam Shaw saw a middle-aged man, graying at the temples, stiff of posture and physically laughable. His hands were clasped on the table: soft hands, civilian hands. His beer was untouched. He was unarmed. She could have hocked his wristwatch for a grand; a thousand bucks would keep her off-grid for a while.

If she did not know better, she would have said _librarian, professor, accountant;_ she did know better, and she didn't like that his front was as good as it was.

There was no trace of fear in the watery blue eyes that stared at her, and Shaw wasn't crazy about that either. He should have been afraid. That he wasn't meant that he was either stupid, or that he knew something she didn't, and she didn't think he was stupid.

There was a stillness to him, a patience and a focus, that Shaw was unused to seeing in civilians.

"I thought," he said, "that we might have better odds of a successful negotiation without Mr. Reese present."

"You thought that, did you," she said, and took another deep swig from the beer. "And what exactly is it you're wanting to negotiate."

Finch's fingers steepled. His eyes remained steady on hers. "I think you know what I want, Miss Shaw."

"Yeah, fuck off."

He leaned back stiffly into the booth. The bar was half-a-block away from a few financial and law firms. He was not the only man in a suit in the bar, but he was the only one dressed quite so formally.

"Miss Shaw, you have talents and skills I can use. You have nothing better to do. Is there any reason, other than stubbornness, that you won't entertain my employment offer?"

She shrugged. "Nope. But stubbornness is a pretty good reason."

He sighed. Behind his thick-framed glasses, his eyes tracked to the side, out the window, though his head didn't turn. He reached into his jacket, and Shaw had a foot up, under the table, between his legs, boot planted at his groin, heel ready to drive home if anything like a weapon appeared, all before she'd fully thought it through.

He blinked spastically at her, several times, hand frozen. "Ex _cuse_ you," he hiccuped, and stared down his body to where her foot rested in dangerous proximity to his assets.

"Thought you might be going for a weapon," she said, to cover up the fact that her reaction had been instinctive, because she'd already decided he didn't have a gun, a knife, anything like that.

 _"Paperwork,_ actually," he said, voice strained, eyes very wide. "Do you _mind?"_

She withdrew her foot.

Mr. Finch cleared his throat, twitch-blinked three more times, and drew out a five-by-seven manila envelope which he slid across the table. Shaw squinted at him. He was pretty composed for a guy who'd just had a boot at his balls-- shaken, yeah (and pressing his knees together beneath the table), but not backing down.

She opened the envelope. Passport. Driver's license. Her face, a fake name. They were pretty good. She tilted them to the window's light and revised her estimation: they were _very_ good. She lifted an interrogating eyebrow at him.

"You want to avoid detection by the ISA," Finch said. "You'll need documentation. I can provide that."

Shaw tapped her short, blunt fingernails against the plastic of the driver's license. "I can get my own."

"I'm sure you can. But I can provide them for you quickly, easily, discreetly, and free of charge. You strike me as a pragmatist, Miss Shaw. I'm offering you practical solutions for your needs. How committed are you to stubbornness for stubbornness' sake?"

Breaking his ankle with a knife-edge kick, she thought, would go a long way to puncturing his confidence. She mulled it over while she sipped at what was left of her beer, tilted the IDs back and forth in the light.

"In exchange for your assistance with the work that Mr. Reese and I do, I am offering you my considerable resources to help you avoid detection. Including, but not limited to, assistance with documents, digital security, active interference with ISA attempts to find you... I will also provide you with whatever material goods you request-- weaponry, money, vehicles-- as well as an income. If there's something you want that I haven't listed, put it on the table, Miss Shaw. _I want your skills."_

Shaw rotated her tongue around inside her cheek, sucked on her teeth, stared at him.

"You're pretty sanguine about the fact I nearly just crushed your junk."

"Well, _apparently,_ hiring ex-government operatives seems to involve a... a certain amount of physical danger and discomfort."

She couldn't help a small, tight grin. "Mm. What'd Reese do to you?"

"Slammed me against a wall. Via my throat."

"Mm. Poor baby," she said, and looked back down to the IDs.

She didn't really want to work for him. She didn't want to work for anyone. She'd had enough of employers, enough of orders, people using you for their goals and killing you when you hadn't even _fucked up,_ you'd just asked too many goddamn questions. Or your partner had.

On the other hand, she had to do something to get money. Big-item theft was complicated: theft required you to steal merchandise, then to fence it, and that required contacts, and the more contacts you had the easier you were to track.

She put the cards and passport back in the envelope. "How much would you pay me?"

"How much would you like to be paid?"

Shaw grinned sourly up at him, _did you really just ask me that?_ "Dangerous question."

He didn't smile. He looked back at her with something like a subtle challenge. "I'm quite serious. Name your price, Miss Shaw."

Her smile broadened, involuntarily. She couldn't remember the last time she'd smiled. Yeah, okay, she'd play. She'd toss him a number. When he hemmed and hawed, then she had her excuse to leave. She'd take the IDs, though, as payment for having to sit through this.

"A million dollars," Shaw drawled, and drained the last of what was in her mug.

"Done," he said, and she nearly coughed on her beer.  
  
She stared at him. He sat there, pale and stodgy and unblinking. Shaw licked foam off her lips.

"...per _month,"_ she stuck on, slowly, just to see if there was any reaction.  
  
"Cash or check, Miss Shaw?"

Shaw put her glass back down carefully on the table. "You're serious."

"As I already said. Yes. _Name your price_ ; as long as your terms don't involve harming other people, I am likely to agree to them."

Shaw didn't know what to do with that. She sat up a little straighter.

"I want another beer."

For the first time, he smiled, a tiny flicker of his lips that didn't quite reach his eyes. He pushed his own across the table towards her.

"Anything else?" he asked, and she tried, she really did, but she couldn't think of anything.


	2. The Jacket

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter came about because in S3E06, Shaw shows up in a jacket that I don't recall having seen her in before. I always wondered why the wardrobe change... and this is what I came up with.

"I was hoping we might have a discussion about your wardrobe, Miss Shaw."

"Aw, are my girly-bits distracting you from the Mission, Harold?"

He gave her a _look,_ that look he gave her a lot, like he wasn't entirely certain what language she was speaking. Shaw sighed.

"Fine. What?"

"I don't know if it's escaped your notice, but in our enterprise, we aspire to a certain level of professionalism..."

She waited, arms crossed. Finch was looking at her body. She was used to that, except usually they were _looking_ at her _body,_ and Finch more looked like he was doing math. He didn't say anything, his brows drawn, and she growled.

" _And?_ "

"Sorry," he said with a little shake of his head. "I was trying to guesstimate. No, anyway, part of professionalism is how we present ourselves, Miss Shaw. Mr. Reese wears a suit. Your, ah, your... sense of personal style, while-- pragmatic-- isn't really... up to par."

Shaw looked at him in disbelief. "You want me to wear a suit."

Finch smiled and nodded as if the words she'd just said made perfect sense. "Just so. I have my measuring tape handy, so if you'll just come into the better lighting of the office, we'll--"

She told him where he could stick his measuring tape, and made a point to wear her combat boots for the next week.

He didn't let it go, though. He made comments over the next few weeks, little asides in her earpiece, and he kept wincing every time she pretended to discover a new hole in her jeans, and tormenting him was kinda fun but _God_ he could be annoying, so--

So, ultimately, because she was a pragmatist, she caved. Shaw took some of her new, ridiculous income and bought a new outfit. New boots, unscuffed (for now), new pants (cut loose enough to let her move, but a fabric that'd let her move in an office building too, if she had to), and a jacket with actual lapels and a brand name that sounded kinda familiar.

She would never have said it aloud, especially to Finch, but, looking at herself in the dressing room mirror, she had to admit she looked like a classy motherfucker. It was a different vibe from her street clothes. Made her look a little older. Covered up the muscle tone in her arms. She could pass as a businesswoman, which was nice, because nobody expected a businesswoman to heel-palm the cartilage of their nose back into their brains.

When she entered the library, he glanced her way, glanced again, and she resisted the urge to smirk. _Yeah, see? I can be a_ _professional_ _. Suck it._

He didn't say anything though-- he looked kind of like he had a toothache-- and her sense of smugness faded to irritation.

_"What."_

"...I suppose I should commend your effort," he said, carefully.

Man, she so should have broken his ankle back in that bar a month ago. Shaw set her jaw and glared at him. "You're damn right you should. Christ. This doesn't meet your standards? I look _good._ "

He tapped his fingertips together hesitantly, eyes darting over the lines of her clothing. "It's certainly an improvement."

Okay, this was bullshit. "It's _Vera Wang,_ Harold."

He _snorted_. He literally snorted, and leaned back in the chair. "It is assuredly not Vera Wang, Miss Shaw."

"It assuredly-the-fuck is."

Finch looked pained, though she wasn't sure if it was for her language or her clothes. "Miss Shaw. I'm acquainted with Vera Wang's Fall collection. I promise you-- I _wager_ you, if you like-- that you are not wearing Vera Wang."

She lifted her chin. "How much we betting, _Harold_?"

He crossed his arms, brows lifting in turn. " 'Name your price', Miss Shaw."

Oh, she was going to _own_ his prissy, sanctimonious ass. Shaw grinned, stalked forward, put one hand on each of the armrests and leaned in. His brows climbed up and up, but he didn't pull back.  
  
"A million dollars."

"Done," he said. He lifted a hand towards her neck-- then paused, because Harold Finch was bright enough to realize that was a stupid thing to do-- and glanced the request at her, sidelong. "May I?"

Shaw smiled, sweet as the green tea he over-sugared. "Oh, be my _guest_ , Harold."

His fingers (civilian hands, no trigger callouses, trimmed nails, cold when they very briefly brushed the back of her neck) pulled at her jacket's collar and turned it backwards so he could see the label.

"Mm. _Simply Vera,"_ he murmured, and let go.

"How about that?" Shaw grinned. "Guess you owe me a million dollars. _Another_ million dollars."

Finch had the nerve to laugh. He rolled his chair back from her. "Hardly. --Miss _Shaw_ , are you under the misapprehension that 'Vera Wang' and 'Simply Vera' are the same thing?"

She stared. Her smile felt stuck on her face, slowly drooped off. "...'scuse me?"

He swiveled back to his computer, started typing. "Vera Wang is an internationally-renowned designer who specializes in wedding couture, Miss Shaw. _Simply Vera_ is a retail-priced line of merchandise that is marketed... loosely... under her name."

"…" Shaw glared murder at the side of his stupid head. "What's the fucking difference?"

"About fifteen hundred dollars, among other things."

"Okay, in the first place, that is _bullshit,_ and anybody who spends upwards of a grand on a jacket deserves to be shot, and in the second place, it has her name on it, it _counts."_

"Your personal feelings on the matter not withstanding, I assure you Ms. Wang has about as much to do with the jacket you're wearing as I, as your employer, have to do with all the dangerous artillery you and Mr. Reese are so very fond of."

Shaw gritted her teeth. "If this doesn't meet with your _approval,_ exactly what were _you_ intending to dress me in?"

"Pinstripe and Pearls' three-piece 'Maria' suit," Finch said automatically. He tilted the computer's screen so she could see a woman's suit in sleek, sharp black, with a wine-colored lining.

\--okay, sexy, granted. (Not that she was going to tell his smug ass that.) Nice enough for a party or a dinner. _Not_ field clothes, though. Too memorable for one thing, and especially not at-- she converted the price in her head, from pounds to dollars-- oh fuck no.

"Finch," she said, "you're aware what happens to the clothes Reese and I wear, right?"

Her boss gave a little shrug. "I've incinerated enough of Mr. Reese's bloodied, torn, or otherwise demolished clothing to get a fair idea, yes."

"You could have me wear a suit made entirely of one-dollar bills, and it'd still be cheaper than that, when it inevitably gets ruined."

He twisted in the chair to look at her, give her a slow, indifferent blink, and it was that, more than anything else she'd seen, that really started to drive home for Shaw how rich he was.

He could pay her twelve million dollars a year: sure. He _could._ He wanted her skills bad enough, he could do that. There were other rich people who could do that. Maybe not many who _would,_ but that was what she had used as the benchmark for his wealth, until now: that he could, and would, spend a million dollars a month to keep a black ops agent on retainer, in order to save people's lives.

Now she had a new marker. Now the marker was: he could, and would, spend a thousand dollars on a suit that he fully accepted would get destroyed within the space of a week, because it fit his idea of how his employees should dress when they saved people's lives.

"So, Miss Shaw," Finch said, "will you be paying off our bet with cash, or check?"

"Kiss my Simply Wang ass."

He made a face. "It's Simply _Vera."_

"I know what I said," Shaw tossed over her shoulder, as she headed for the door.


	3. The Rescue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I have no excuses for this one.

_The building's a fire hazard,_ Finch had said two hours ago, an off-hand comment about the condemned warehouse she and Reese had tracked their latest number to. _Be careful, please._

A lot had happened in two hours.

They hadn't found the number, but they'd found his computer set-up: six 10-year-old PCs hooked up in the former office of the warehouse, jury-rigged to a generator and a car battery for power: the office was a warren of cables and everything bespoke a paranoid mind. Finch had taken one look at the pictures they'd sent of the electronic mess, and told them to wait for him.

They'd swept the building while waiting for Finch, double-checked that Karkarov wasn't on-site. Then they'd swapped lies and soldier stories, and Reese was still a pain-in-the-ass but he had his moments, Shaw had decided.

Finch had limped his way up the stairs to find them, started making tutting noises at the tangled cables, and set to work getting data off the computers _without_ triggering any of Karkarov's fail-safes, which Finch had called "crude and twenty years out-of-date, but nonetheless effective."

None of them had seen the cameras, which were decidedly modern and top-of-the-line. Turned out an ex-KGB agent knew where to hide them. It also turned out he was pretty good at booby-trapping the building, too.

The building was on fire. The broken barrels and crates, that had made the ground floor an obstacle course when she and Reese had first picked their way through with guns drawn, were now a burning labyrinth. Karkarov had swapped out the water in the old, decaying sprinkler system for accelerant, which was a trick Shaw was both impressed by, and was planning on breaking the old man's face for if they ever found him.

"We need to move, _now,"_ Reese shouted to her and Finch over the sounds of things popping and snapping on the other side of the thin wall. Reese was really good at stating the obvious, Shaw thought.

She took point, gun out, staring down the flight of narrow, half-rotted stairs that led back to the ground floor. This'd be a bitch-- she could see where the flames were licking through the wood, and the smoke was getting heavy already-- but it wasn't anything they couldn't handle.

She looked back to ask if they were ready, to find them arguing.

"--only going to slow you down, I can't possibly--"  
  
"Finch, if you think for a moment that I'm leaving you here--"  
  
Shaw rolled her eyes. "Hey. What's the fucking hold-up?"

Finch shot her an exasperated look. "Kindly explain to Mr. Reese that I can't _vault down the stairs_ like the two of you."

Shaw was bemused. "...of course you can't. So?"

He looked confusion at her, so she turned an irritated look on Reese, because they didn't have time for him to pussy-foot around. Reese looked back at her, looked to Finch, looked back at her, cleared his throat.

"Okay," he said, "Harold, bear with me here, what I'm going to do is--"

Oh, for _fuck's_ sake. They really didn't have time for Reese to pussy-foot around Finch's _dignity._ Shaw jammed her gun back into its holster and shouldered past Reese to Finch. It took her all of four seconds to bend down, stick her shoulder into Finch's soft gut, and lock down his flailing arm and the back of his leg. She pushed with her thighs, grunted as she took his weight across her shoulders-- Finch needed to lay off the donuts-- and turned on Reese, who stood there blinking at her.

"Less talking. More running. Take point, Reese."

" _Miss_ _SHAW--"_ Finch squawked into the small of her back, his free arm thrashing around.

"Shut up, Harold," she said.

Reese stared for another two seconds, then twitched into life. He led down the stairs, kicked a burning beam out of their path, used a broken door to make an impromptu bridge over a spreading pool of flame-licked oil-- good, fine, she was hauling eighty kilos of sedentary, struggling geek over her shoulders, Wonderboy could do _something_ to make himself useful--

Reese busted open the last door with his shoulder and they were out again, into clean air-- Reese scanned with his gun for any sign of Karkarov.

"Miss _Shaw,_ put me _down--"_

"Love to," she gritted out, "once we know we don't have to sprint for the car--"

Fifteen more seconds hunched in the cover afforded by the rusting dumpster, before Reese finally lowered his gun and gave her the all-clear. Finch protested the entire damn time. She considered dropping him _in_ the dumpster, but, you know, Reese had his gun drawn and she didn't hers, so...

She lowered him until he got his dress shoes under him in the gravel. He was red in the face, his eyes huge and furious behind his crooked glasses.  
  
"Finch," murmured Reese, "you alright?"

"Oh for fuck's sake. He's fine except for his ego," Shaw said.

Finch glared murder at her. He looked like a turtle trying to be intimidating. "If you _ever_ do that _again--"_

"Which part, save your life, or neglect to tiptoe around your dignity?"

He sputtered. He twitched. He smoothed down his waistcoat and straightened his tie. Reese looked away, ostensibly scanning for trouble but she knew better: he was trying not to bust up laughing.

Shaw felt no such compunctions. She flashed Harold a grin while he made awkward tea-kettle noises. "I think this clears us of my last bet, what do you think? --also, have you considered a diet, Harold?"

He went red to white to red again. He limp-stomped off towards his car, still trying to put his person back in order and muttering something about regrouping at the library. Shaw cupped her hands around her mouth and yelled, "You're welcome!" at his retreating backside.


	4. Christmas Eve

It was Harold's fault she was dressed as an elf.

She hadn't yet decided what she was going to do to him for that, because she hadn't thought of anything nasty enough yet, and that was saying something.

It hadn't started _out_ being Harold's fault, at least, not entirely. It had started out because it was Christmas Eve and the costume company had exactly two wearable elf costumes left (or so Harold had said) when he had called, and they were both on the short size, and one was Sexy Elf Girl and one was Jovial Fat Elf, which meant she and Fusco were both in this fuck-up together.

(She'd given Harold a long, middle-distance scowl at the time, wondering if this was his way of getting back at her for the carrying-him thing, but then, that had been a few weeks ago. But nah, Finch wouldn't punish Fusco at the same time. She didn't think.

("I could be a parent instead," she'd said.

("And hang around Mr. DeMarco, with no visible child in tow, for hours? Without arousing his suspicions?" Finch had countered.

("Give me thirty minutes to drive to Gen's school, and I'll have a kid."

("You are _not_ dragging Genrika into a case," he'd said.

("Mmm. Fusco's got a kid."

("Don't even think about it," Fusco had growled, while dragging on the green-and-red striped tights, so....)

Anyway. DeMarco was a mall Santa, doing the pictures-with-the-kids crap, and the kids-on-the-knee crap, and he already _had_ an elf but Finch had taken care of that (of course he had) with a call to mall management about a past criminal conviction. Shaw and Fusco's story was that the mall wanted some extra elves around for the Christmas Eve rush of last-minute snotty-nosed brats, and Shaw didn't have to do too much but take pictures and accepted donated toys for a toy drive.

DeMarco wasn't too happy to have them there instead of his usual elf. That was fine, she wasn't too happy to be there either, but whatever, she was a professional. And the LIVE REINDEER! chewed at Fusco's hair, and not hers.

They got a bug on DeMarco, cloned his phone, and Finch's voice narrated his findings in her ear. They only had to be here another hour, then the mall would close, and Santa DeMarco would have a sleigh ride over to St. Jerome's Orphanage, where he was supposed to present a check representing a month of donations by mall businesses and customers. And pass out the toys to all the goddamn Pollyanna orphans.

"So exactly how are we supposed to tag along with him then? DeMarco's not crazy about his extra elves," Shaw hissed through her big fake smile.

"I'm working on that," Finch said over the background noise of keys. "You may not have to, if the threat manifests before then."

It did. Or rather, Finch discovered it, by means of listening in on one of his calls. And here was the thing: Shaw could forgive Harold the elf costume (grudgingly), she could grant that it was just the best cover for the job, and that it wasn't personal because Fusco had to wear a fucking elf costume too-- all of that, she could have accepted, moved on from.

She could not forgive him the fact that he gave the collar to Reese, though.

Reese swept in, in sensible black, flashed that cop badge that was gonna come back to bite him on the ass one of these days, and smiled at her and at the line of impatient children and tired parents.

"Santa will be right back," he said with one hand locked around DeMarco's red-swathed upper arm. "I'm sure that Santa's little helpers will take down your Christmas lists, won't you, elves?"

And he dragged DeMarco off while she and Fusco stared at each other and stared at the line of kids and Fusco looked helpless and maybe, maybe Shaw should have stayed and helped him the fuck out, but he already owed her one for saving his son, so, you know, he had to work that debt off first as far as she was concerned. 

She plucked one of the Santa hats they were giving away (for a Small, Suggested Donation) off the rack, tossed it to Fusco, and waved him into Santa's big golden chair with a toothy smile. "All yours, Lionel."

"Wait-- no-- no goddammit it, Shaw, you can't leave me here-- _SHAW!"_

She was at the mall doors when Finch's voice cut across her earpiece again, short and worried. "Miss Shaw? Miss Shaw, are you there?"

The worry in his tone was the only reason she answered. Maybe DeMarco had shot John. Would have served him right.

"I'm here. What's up?"

"I need you to meet me at St. Jerome's," he said, and in the background there was the sound of things dropping, heavy items shifting.

"Why, what's happening?" she asked sharply, but Finch muttered a flustered, prim curse and maybe dropped his phone, because the call cut out with a staccato clatter in her ear.

Shaw swore. Reese's bike was parked nearby; she figured he owed it to her, coming in and stealing her cathartic holiday punching session out from under her.

She reached St. Jerome's, all the way across town, in thirty-two minutes, because she was just that goddamn good. And freezing, too, because, amazingly, elf costumes did jack-all to keep out the cold. She more-or-less dropped the bike into a snowdrift behind the orphanage (that served Reese right, too), and started at a fast clip around the building, shivering and stomping her feet.

Shaw constructed scenarios: DeMarco had gotten away from Reese and was... coming to the orphanage to rain down death and destruction? His original elf had been in on... whatever DeMarco was doing, because Shaw still didn't fucking _know,_ because nobody'd bothered to tell her, and had come to the orphanage to take the spirit of Christmas hostage? The orphanage administration had set DeMarco up, and were planning on offing a child every hour until midnight until their ransom demands were met? All of these sounded fun.

She rounded the corner-- and there was Santa Claus, except not DeMarco in his cheap, shitty, mass-produced red velour. This was... she stopped walking, staring, trying to prod her brain past some momentary cognitive dissonance.

This was not Santa Claus: this was _Saint Nicholas_ , Father Christmas from the old country. He stood by the orphanage's back door, in a halo of lamplight, surrounded by snow, oblivious to her appearance.

No red faux-velvet, but layered robes of white and gold, heavy enough they dragged the icy sidewalk, real fur and real velvet. The obligatory beard was white and thick. Gold thread glinted in intricate embroidery; a braided belt gleamed golden at his waist. Instead of the iconic hat, this Santa had a fur-trimmed hood. Little bells jingled when he moved, a soft, silvery sound that cut across the muted noises of traffic. He had a bishop's staff, leaned against the crook of one arm as he scooped gifts into a sack with the slow, stiff motions of an old man.

For one entirely surreal moment, Shaw was caught up in it, in a weird fairy-tale place where Santa Claus was real (she'd never believed, not even as a child-- who could believe something that blatantly dumb?). Then her brain caught up with her.

"…Harold," she said in disbelief, and he started, looked at her through gold-rimmed half-moon spectacles.

"Oh, Miss Shaw. Thank goodness. Could you lend me a hand with the presents?"

She stared. There were a lot of things she was considering saying, like _Okay, what exactly is going on?_ and _Wait,_ _this_ _is what you needed me over here for? I'm going to kill you,_ but what came out was--

"Where the _hell_ did you get that outfit?"

Finch blinked at her. "Oh... around. I think we have enough time to get these inside, so--"

"No. No, you don't just get that _around._ Finch, the costume company supposedly had nothing left but two _shitty_ polyester elves, one of whom is standing in front of you with her ass frozen off, so you better consider very carefully the answer to the question I will ask twice: _where_ did you get that outfit, because if I were for some reason to think that you were _lying_ about the Christmas Eve scarcity of good costumes in order to make me wear _this,_ I'd be really, really _unhappy with you_ , Finch."

He peered at her through the picturesque little glasses, weighing what might happen to him if she were really, really unhappy. "...if you must know, Miss Shaw, I had it in storage."

Shaw pinched the bridge of her nose. "...fuck it, I'll bite. _Why_ do you have an elaborate Santa outfit in storage, Finch?"

Finch sighed. "Because, before he grew up, I used to play Santa every Christmas for the benefit of the son of a close friend. Can we please get the gifts out of the car? There are thirty-four children inside this building who are expecting Santa to show up, bearing presents, in about eight minutes, and I have no intention of letting Mr. DeMarco's criminal selfishness ruin their Christmas."

Shaw made a wordless growling noise and scrubbed at her face with her frozen hands. She ripped off the felt elf hat and tossed it at him.

"Miss Shaw-- Miss Shaw, where are you _going--"_

"Away from you, before the children come out to find Santa's decapitated head in the snow."  
  
Ultimately, he had to bribe her. Shaw extorted the promise of a bottle of thirty-year-old malt Scotch and a week off in Aruba, but the real reason she relented was that she'd figured out what her revenge was going to be.

She waited. She bided her time. She smiled as Santa presented a check to the orphanage, she helped Santa pass out toys, she made polite noises at the administrator of the orphanage, who couldn't stop gushing her thanks, and she stood there while Finch plopped snotty-nosed kid after kid onto his good knee and dispensed holiday cheer.

She figured it was going to take Reese at least an hour to track where his bike had gotten to.

The kids were all done with Santa's lap and playing with their toys by the time he arrived: a door opening, a tall figure in sensible black weaving his way into the building. Shaw smiled.

Harold was talking. "--just wanted to say thank you, Miss Shaw-- I do realize there are other things you would prefer to have been doing with your evening, but I appreciate the assistance and--"

Shaw sat down on Santa's lap.

Finch nearly choked, if the sounds from behind the beard were any indication. Shaw grinned, wiggled her Sexy Elf Ass around for good measure, ran her fingers through Saint Nick's beard while Finch stared at her in utter, confused panic from behind the spectacles.

"Miss Shaw," he sputtered, "what ex _act_ ly are you doing--"

"Earning this year's sack of coal?" Wiggle, wiggle.

What little of his face she could see turned this amazing, Christmas crimson. Finch hissed, " _MissShawThereAre_ _Children_ _Present--"_

Oh _good,_ he hadn't even seen Reese yet. Shaw wrenched the stupid beard down, revealing that the lower half of his face was just as red, his prissy mouth hanging half-open.

"Sorry, Harold, I didn't think to grab any of the mall's mistletoe, but you know, you're seasonal enough for both of us," she said-- before she leaned down to give him a really filthy, tacky, mouth-fucking kind of kiss. (Bonus points: she was giving the orphans an education for Christmas, in _multiple_ senses.)

For about five seconds he didn't do anything, and Shaw almost felt a little tiny bit bad (maybe she'd misread him, maybe he _was_ gay, maybe the never-stealing-a-dirty-glance was just because he really didn't notice shit like that and not because he was so _fucking_ invested in being a gentleman--), but six seconds in and Finch made this small noise against her mouth, and his tongue half-pressed back against hers and _bingo_ , Shaw thought, Shaw thought with dark satisfaction. He was human, even if he was a stupid altruistic fuckhead who prioritized Christmas-toys-for-orphans while running a mission that was probably going to get them all killed.

Reese cleared his throat behind her about ten seconds in. "Shaw, do you think molesting Santa Claus in front of children is appropriate holiday behavior?"

She slithered off St. Finch's lap, straightened her elf skirt, and beamed up at Reese. Her work here was done.

"I do. See you in a week, Reese."

She sauntered off, listening, waiting, waiting to hear it behind her--

"Sorry about that, San-- _Harold?!"_

"M-Mister Reese, I, I'm not really sure what--"

"What just--"

"--that was about, I have n-no idea why she--"

"--happened--"

 _Yeah_ , Shaw thought, as she headed out to where she'd ditched Reese's bike. _Just try being a saint with a fucking hard-on, Harold; go on._ It was about making a point, and she'd made hers.

Plus, she'd gotten to blow Reese's little mind, which was always a bonus.


	5. Bedside

Aruba had slowed her reflexes, that was the only thing she could think of: that a week in the sun, far from New York's cold and sleet, had tanned her into languid sloth.

Because three days after she returned to New York, she was slow, slow in a fight: microseconds too slow to dodge the baseball bat that clipped the back of her skull and sent her reeling, dizzy; and that made her too slow to dodge the next swing, which slammed into her ribs, and goddammit this was not how she was supposed to die, not due to some amateur gangbanger getting lucky with a Louisville Slugger--

The third swing rocketed crazily through her spinning world and hit the side of her head, knocked out the earpiece and her vision with it, and the floor rose up to meet her.

The world swam black and red. Finch's voice was tinny and small through the earpiece, coming from miles away:

_"Miss Shaw? Miss Shaw! Miss Shaw, hold on, we're coming--"_

*

...she woke up to light, soft and golden enough that she thought she was back in Aruba, in the bungalow she'd rented on Finch's dime.

But no. Through the layer of cotton her brain was wrapped in, she took in details: the oversized, pointless wall clock. Windows. The brick walls. She knew this room: it was where they'd put Reese, where Finch had sat vigil for hours waiting for him to wake up.

The golden light wasn't tropical sun, but a table lamp, soft and diffuse. Nighttime, then. She was alive, and she was in pain, but the pain was dull and manageable enough that she knew they'd given her something. She took inventory: her head was a big throbbing ball of misery, and breathing deep was right out. Broken ribs then, for sure.

She closed her eyes. Opened them again with no sense of how much time had elapsed. Not good. She hoped it was only the drugs fucking with her. Her mouth was a desert.  
  
A careful, motionless look around showed her a glass of water on the sidetable. She reached for it, and was rewarded with a lot of pain down her side.

"Miss Shaw-- here, let me..."

Finch. Finch was there. Shaw blinked against the swimming room as he surged up from somewhere just outside her field of vision (a chair? Yeah, there was a chair there, where he'd parked his ass during his Reese-watching stints) and reached for the glass.

She gazed dully up at him. Wondered what he was doing there. Didn't really make sense. But he had the straw to her lips and that was workable, so, she worked with it. She drank until her mouth felt normal, even if the rest of her was still wrapped in numb cotton.

Finch set the glass back down when she nodded it away. He touched her forehead with the back of his hand, made a little noise, then looked at the computer screen that showed her vitals. (Finch and his damned toys.) He looked tired, sagging lines under his red eyes.

Wait, had he been there waiting for her to _wake up_ , like he had with Reese? The thought was-- hilarious-- and Shaw laughed before she could tell herself not to. More pain, hot daggers of it in her side, killing her ability to breathe, killing her ability to see.

When her vision cleared, he was still there, looking down at her with brows knit and face drawn. Shaw gasped shallowly for air.

"Go 'way, Harold."

He lifted one eyebrow. "Don't be silly. You might need something."

Jesus, he was so lucky she was incapacitated. If she could move, she'd be on her feet, grabbing him by the collar and frog-marching him back out there to his computers to get the fuck back to work.

It was bad enough he'd done this over Tall, Dark, and Stupid, but then, they had... whatever they had, whatever semi-sacred, co-dependent junkies thing they had going on, and Shaw had mustered up all the tiny bits of empathy she had in order to not shit on Harold's precious feelings when he'd sat there with Reese a half-dead thing in the bed before them. She got battle-bonds, a little bit (more than she got any other sort of bonds), and she'd known that if she had tried to tell Finch he needed to leave Reese's side and get back to work, she'd have gotten nowhere, so she'd written it off as yet another way that people's glorious feelings fucked up their capacity for professionalism and she'd kept her mouth shut.

It was bad enough he'd done it over Reese. Now he was doing it over _her?_ Fucking no.

She'd really like to give him hell over it. Maybe when she woke up again.

Shaw slept, and woke, and slept, and woke, and each time, Finch was there, asking what she needed, helping her with what she couldn't do for herself, and each time she told him to go away, fuck off, go be good Samaritan to someone else, and each time he'd dismissed her, politely and absolutely, and eventually Shaw stopped telling him, because presumably Reese was out there fighting the good fight and saving puppies, and there was something kind of hilarious about having a billionaire waiting on her hand and foot.

She woke with a clearer head at last, with a lot of pain but with a clear head, and inch by inch shoved herself up onto her elbows, teeth gritted through the pain. Harold was out cold in the chair, snoring faintly, head held upright by the screws in his neck. His vest was unbuttoned, his shirt wrinkled-- she was pretty sure they were the same clothes she'd been wearing when she'd gotten baseball-batted, however long ago that was now. His tie was nowhere in evidence, and his glasses were dangling from one hand.

She kicked him, because her legs worked more or less okay-- a mild thump of her heel against his knee. Finch jerked, snorted, twitched awake. He blinked at her myopically.

"You're snoring," she said, because she had to say something to explain why she'd just woken him up. "It's like a fucking chainsaw. Some of us are trying to rest."

"I'm very sorry, Miss Shaw," he mumbled, his usually perfect diction shot to shit with sleepiness, a yawn chasing the tail end of his words. "Would you prefer I-- mmn-- I went somewhere else?"

She eased herself back down again. "Nah. Just keep it down, Harold."


	6. The (Other) Rescue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (Warning for references to torture in this chapter.)

The look on Reese's face was murder-in-a-jar, and Shaw ground down on the urge to snap at him to _keep it together, you don't help Harold if you lose your shit._ She had to trust him to be professional-- that goddamned word again, a word that had haunted her every day since she'd first accepted Finch's money, Finch's job-- and she had to pick up the slack when he failed at that.

They were making their way down the empty office building's hall, covering each other at the doorways, doing it by-the-book, and every twitch of Reese's body spoke to the fact that he wanted to _run,_ that he wanted to burn the book and start sprinting. But he was keeping it under control.

At least until they heard the screaming.

Reese's face twisted and Shaw shot out a hand on pure reflex. She managed to get a fistful of his shirt, and he still dragged her six steps down the hall before she managed to get him to stop.

"Fucking _check yourself,_ Reese," she snarled, and he looked down at her with his eyes wild.

"That's _Harold--"_

"I know who that is!" Shaw snapped, and shoved him back against the wall. "And the fact that he's screaming means he's still alive, so get your head on straight and do this right-- you want to run into a hail of bullets and have him see his rescue die at his feet?"

John's jaw worked and clenched but he finally nodded, shortly, and they started moving again.

Finch screamed twice more before they got to the door, long, drawn-out noises of pain that trailed off into sobbing. Each time she braced herself to stop Reese; each time he twitched, but he kept moving at a controlled clip.

It wasn't nice to listen to, Shaw granted, but as long as Finch was screaming, he was saveable, and as long as he was screaming, it meant he hadn't told them what they wanted to know, so... could have been worse. As she reckoned it.

She knew most people weren't as objective.

But they were there, at the door, and Shaw dragged John to a stop again while she listened for movement, trying to get a sense of numbers on the other side of that door. It was wasted: Harold cried out again, high and hoarse and gasping, and nope, nothing doing, John was _moving,_ slamming the door open and kicking things off with gunfire.

Shaw decided to kick him in the nuts for it later. For now, he made a good distraction, so she rolled into the room after him, small and dark and low. A bullet hit her anyway-- slammed her back into the wall as it buried itself in her vest-- she shook it off, kept moving.

She came to a stop in front of Finch, took in the damage with a short, fast scan. She was expecting electrodes on the groin or chest, maybe, or the sight of his his face bloodied and swollen: it took her a second to figure out where they'd been hurting him, because it wasn't any of those.

His leg-- the bad leg, the one he favored-- his trouser-leg had been cut open and they'd gone to work with a knife and maybe a bat, it looked like. Shaw cataloged the damage dispassionately while Reese took the Russians apart behind her in a whirlwind of Armageddon.

On the one hand, she supposed, his leg was already a mess, so it probably wouldn't make his life substantially worse in the future. On the other hand, going to town on a cripple's already-screwy leg was just... fucked up.

His leg was a mass of bruising tissue, purple marks blooming against pale, hairy skin, but no bones were broken in her quick assessment. His sock, and the wool of his trouser leg was soaked through with blood in a few spots, but there wasn't a lot on the floor, so she didn't think he'd lost too much blood yet. His color was decent. She peeled out of her jacket and tied it quick and dirty around his thigh, as a stop-gap until something better could be rigged.

She cut the zipties and Harold sagged in the chair, rubbing at his wrists. She got a hand under his arm.

"I'm going to carry you again," she said into his ear, while Reese kicked someone's face in behind her with a crunch of splintering cartilage.

"I believe I can walk," he answered, and she stared at him a long moment, because _damn,_ he was composed for someone who'd been screaming his head off thirty seconds before.

Reese spun around at Finch's voice, rushed over (she didn't say _I've got this, back off)_ and looked Finch over helplessly. "Harold--"

"I'm alright, John," Harold said, and he grabbed at both their arms and got to his feet.

"The _hell_ you are," Reese answered, and Shaw almost agreed, but she was squinting at him, staring at him, deciphering the puzzle that was Harold Finch. His color _was_ decent. He was a little sweaty, a little shaky, but she'd known conditioned soldiers who would have been way worse off than him if they'd just had their leg carved up for kicks.

Finch was testing his weight, holding onto Reese's arm; Reese looked torn between crying relief and the desire to pick Finch up himself. Finch took a step, and Shaw watched, and he didn't wince at all even though he really should have.

She got it in one quick flick of insight, and started laughing.

Reese turned on her like a Rottweiler.

"No," she said, hand raised, because he was still high on adrenaline and she didn't want to test herself against him, not in earnest, "no, it's okay, he's not in any pain at all. Are you, Harold?"

He glanced at her sidelong, and did what nobody who'd just come off a torture session would do: he smiled. A little strained, but it was a smile-- a sly, diffident twitch of his lips.

"Very astute, Miss Shaw."

Reese growled in hostile confusion. Shaw supposed it was prudent to explain. "He's got no sensation in that leg. Am I right?"

Finch nodded and took a few more testing steps for the door. "I... played up my existing injury a bit, in the hopes they'd focus on that leg... after that, it was a matter of, um. Screaming convincingly."

Shaw couldn't help but grin. "Awww, you scream _good,_ Harold."

Reese was trying to find something to be angry about. He stared at them both. "--he's still _injured,"_ he rasped. "That's not fake _blood."_

"No, no, it's not, you're quite right, John," Harold said with a squeeze to John's shoulder, "and in the long run having no nervous sensation in a limb is actually quite dangerous, but-- but let's just say it's made the last hour considerably less awful than it could have been."

Shaw couldn't stop grinning. It was such a _Finch_ goddamn thing to do, she thought: to take his weakness, his bum leg, and use his wits to turn it to his advantage-- and he was so goddamn _pleased_ that it had worked, too. She worked for a smug little shit.

As Shaw had her moments of being a smug little shit as well, she could live with this.

"Nicely done," she said, and Reese shot her a dirty look as they helped Finch out the door, out the hall. "They spent the last hour totally wasting their time while you sang like a... is canary too obvious?"

"A mynah, actually, would be the best, as it is known for its ability to successfully mimic--"

"This _isn't funny,"_ Reese growled.

"Yeah, it is," Shaw drawled. "Harold Myna."

Finch was leaning on Reese's arm, which probably kept Reese from slugging her, but he smiled that strained smile again and said, "It's... a _little_ funny, John-- I grant you, a very gallows humor but--"

"You were tortured. It's not funny," Reese said. "Even _with_ you screaming, sooner or later they would have realized you were playing them and not giving them any info, and then they'd have switched to something else, and--"

"Yes, John," Harold said, patting at John's arm, "but I was only trying to buy time for you to arrive."

Wonderboy was a little mollified by that. They got Finch out, and Reese drove, while Harold stretched out as best he could in the back seat and Shaw set to work on his leg.

"They got really artistic here, what was this, a pocketknife?"

"A razorblade, I think," Finch said with his voice thin and his eyes on the car ceiling. (Reese made a noise from the front seat.) "I confess I was really trying not to look."

"Fair enough," said Shaw, and decided not to describe the spiral they'd cut, or the cigarette burns. Finch was going to have some interesting scars.

Later (much later), with Finch's leg swathed in bandages and ice packs, Shaw leaned against the doorjamb with her arms crossed and watched him get comfortable as he could. They'd cut up another pair of his fine wool trousers in order to accommodate the bandages, and his face at the necessary destruction had been hilarious. 

Reese was out: ostensibly walking Bear, but she knew John was still keyed up, still wanted something to hit, and therefore had to take himself out of the room before his precious Harold saw him like that.

"Got everything you need?" she asked, and Finch nodded.

"I think so, yes."

"Good, because _I'm_ not staying and mooning over your bedside."

"I wouldn't dream of it, Miss Shaw." He had his laptop, was getting back behind his screens, becoming Finch again, becoming the boss she had so very little in common with. "Thank you for your assistance today."

"Eh. Couldn't let you die. You still owe me that bottle of Scotch."

He peered at her over the tops of his glasses. "And you still owe me a million dollars."

Shaw grinned. "Take it out of my next paycheck, Harold."

"Mmm, I think I prefer holding it over your head, honestly." Finch hesitated-- she saw the gears whirring behind his eyes-- and then he said, "I'll tell you what, Miss Shaw-- when I have obtained your bottle of Glenfiddich, you'll pour me a glass from it."

Shaw's grin grew: slowly, involuntarily. "Harold, are you asking me out for drinks?"

"No, I'm fairly sure we'd be staying in."

She smirked. Smug little shit.

She watched him a moment: a middle-aged geek in an expensive, ruined suit; a rich man who played Santa with people's lives all year round; a civilian who didn't back down, even after days like today. Definitely the most annoying boss she'd ever had.

He looked from his computer screen to her. "Well, Miss Shaw? Do we have an agreement?"

She studied the floor between them for a few seconds before looking back up to him. "…I'm not John, Harold."

He gave her a slow, measured blink. "I don't believe I'm in any confusion over that point."

There was a lot she could have said to that-- _so what, I'm the retail-priced second choice?_ but she did not. Whatever he and Reese had, that was their thing, and it wasn't for her, not now, not ever. Shaw doubted she'd have been able to breathe with the weight of _that_ on her. She neither wanted nor needed a fucking soulmate.

A drinking buddy, though, she could use that. Maybe a little more, depending on how poorly Finch held his liquor.

Shaw grinned. "It's a date, Finch."


End file.
